GallStone Vs Kidney Stone: Differences Worth Knowing

Reviewed By: Pramod Kerkar, MD, FFARCSI

Stones forming in your body might worry you for sure. It is true that Gallstones and Kidney stones develop in many people every year. There are many similar symptoms of the gall stone and kidney stone. However, there are also some differences between the two, which must be known. So, here we will be talking about the differences between gall stone and kidney stone.

GallStone Vs Kidney Stone: Differences Worth Knowing

GallStone Vs Kidney Stone: Basic Differences

Gallstones are hard lumps developing in the gallbladder or the bile duct. However, kidney stone is a hard crystalline mineral matter that is formed within the kidney or urinary tract.

These two stones differ in several other aspects, which will be discussed in the following arrays of the article.

GallStone Vs Kidney Stone: Differences Based on the Causes

Gallstones are caused because of crash diets, ethnicity, obesity, growing age, high fat diet, oral contraceptives, statin drugs etc. There are also hereditary causes of gallstones.

However, Dehydration, calcium supplements, obesity, digestive diseases, growing age, pregnancy, hyperuricemia, ethnicity, etc., along with hereditary causes are some of the causes of kidney stones.

GallStone Vs Kidney Stone: Differences based on Gender Dominance

Gallstones are most likely to occur in female patients. However, kidney stones are most likely to occur in males.

GallStone Vs Kidney Stone: Differences Based On Symptoms

Gallstones are usually asymptomatic, though in some cases there may be pain below ribs, right shoulder, back, sweating, nausea, fever and restlessness.

Kidney stones have common symptoms like pain in abdomen, flank or groin. Apart from this there may also be blood in urine or hematuria, fever, nausea and chills.

GallStone Vs Kidney Stone: Differences Based On Size of the Stones

Gallstone usually vary in size and shape. Such stones are usually small; however, can grow to be as large as a golf ball. There may be a single large gall stone or may be many small stones in the gall bladder of the affected patient.

Kidney stone also vary in size. In case a kidney stone grows more than 3 mm in diameter, it can obstruct the ureter. A huge number of small kidney stones pass via urination spontaneously. About half of the larger kidney stones, which are larger than 5 mm to 10 mm in diameter pass simultaneously.

GallStone Vs Kidney Stone: Differences Based On The Types Of The Stones

Gallstone can be divided in to two types, namely cholesterol gallstone and pigment gall stone. Pigment gall stone is most commonly seen in people suffering from liver diseases, infected bile tubes in patients with blood disorders.